Kushiel's Avatar

Beneath it all, I was still a whore's unwanted get, struggling to make sense of the world and do what was right.

Ah Phèdre, how far we've come from that first meeting in Kushiel's Dart and how much we've ended up learning: about Terre D'Ange and the children of Elua, yes, but also about the wider world, now spanning into Carey's reimagining of Egypt, Carthage, the Middle East and Africa. A voyage of discovery, of cultural exploration and above all, about love (and this book goes beyond just romantic love). Both Phèdre and Joscelin have grown from our first glimpses of them in that initial novel, they've been through slavery and pirates and now, in Kushiel's Avatar, they will venture into their worst nightmare yet.

As this is the last of the initial trilogy, I don't want to dwell a lot on the plot, but suffice to say that it's bigger than anything I thought possible when I first started reading the books. The level of detail that Carey goes into is sublime, yes, and I love her worldbuilding still, but more than anything I love her characters. It truly feels like an epic tale for the ages, something that's matured and grown far beyond just a romance book with a bit of kink thrown in; it's now about politics and greater godly patterns. Because as Carey toned down the ropes and chains, she amped the influence of magic and gods within her books. After all, in this final one, Phèdre is on a far greater quest than most would imagine she would ever go on, knowing her from her earlier books.

We pay for sins we do not remember, and seek to do a will we can scarce fathom. That is what it is, to be a god's chosen.

And boy, does Phèdre suffer to be so chosen. For the first time in these novels, we get to see the guilty side of the anguisette. She is a masochist, yes, and although Carey has touched upon the potential conflicts, it's not until Kushiel's Avatar that she truly goes into that in greater detail. The entire middle section is an exercise in despair, for Phèdre and Joscelin yes, but also for the reader. I almost stopped reading because it truly plumbs the depths of human depravation (though, perhaps, the Mahrkagir was not really totally human...). For all that Darsanga is a low point, in more ways than one, I liked how Carey dealt with the relationship between Phèdre and Joscelin both up to that point and after it. It is, in a lot of ways, the culmination of almost 2,000 pages of character growth, because on the other side of Darsanga is not angst or drama, but compassion and understanding and true love.

It's amazing to see how Carey navigates this great pattern, how much of this has been planned from that first novel, how the idea of Love as thou wilt is explored in so much depth, from so many different angles. How friendship, romantic love, familial love (both biological and families that are linked by more than just blood), even hatred, how all those are aspects of Elua's precepts and how people interpret the idea of love and how far they would go to protect it, to nurture it. How much love can stretch and bend and somehow not break. There are moments towards the end of the book that elsewhere would feel bittersweet but in Kushiel's Avatar, they are poignant and moving and they feel right. It's not melodramatic or overwrought, they are lovely glimpses into friendships that span decades, into loves that have survived the darkness and the hopelessness.

We are all these things, I thought, while the sun blazed in the sky and the ochre sands reflected its heat. Pride, desire, compassion, cleverness, belligerence, fruitfulness, loyalty... and guilt. But above it all stands love. And if we desire to be more than human, that is the star by which we must set our sights.

So what comes next? I think for now I'll take a small break from the world of Terre D'Ange. My understanding is that Kushiel's Scion is a timeskip and a shift from Phèdre to someone altogether quite different. I don't know whether that character or the plot synopsis really appeal to me at this point in time, but this may well change. I would still recommend this initial trilogy though, to fans of alternative history, to fans of character-driven, slow burning fantasy and to those who are willing to give a book slightly longer to take off. Because Phèdre's story is definitely one worth reading.